Many factors today drive the development of computers and computer software. One of these factors is the desire to provide accessibility to information virtually anytime and anywhere. The proliferation of notebook computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and other personal electronic devices reflect the fact that users want to be able to access information wherever they may be, whenever they want. In order to facilitate greater levels of information accessibility, the presentation of information must be made as familiar and comfortable as possible.
In this vein, one way to foster success of electronic presentations of information will be to allow users to handle information in a familiar manner. Stated another way, the use and manipulation of electronically-presented information may mimic those paradigms that users are most familiar with, e.g., printed documents, as an initial invitation to their use. As a result, greater familiarity between users and their “machines” will be engendered, thereby fostering greater accessibility, even if their capabilities are richer and more extensive than what the user is already familiar with. Once users feel comfortable with new electronic presentations, they will be more likely to take advantage of an entire spectrum of available functionality.
One manner of encouraging familiarity is to present information in an electronic book format in which a computer displays information in a manner that closely resembles printed books. In order to more completely mimic a printed book, users will need to have the ability to mark pages in a manner similar to today. Users will want to mark certain pages so that they can return to them later, i.e., to create bookmarks. Additionally, users will want to mark pages where they last left off reading a book, i.e., to create placemarks.
Current technology fails to accurately reproduce the use of bookmarks and placemarks as known in printed books. For example, the “NETSCAPE NAVIGATOR” web browser provides a function called “Bookmarks” that allows a user to store the identity of a given web page for later recall. The “INTERNET EXPLORER” web browser provides a similar function called “Favorites”. However, these functions only provide the ability to return to a given web page that will typically comprise a substantial amount of information that cannot be viewed on a single computer screen. As a result, the user must scroll down the web page to access a certain part of the web page. Furthermore, the “bookmarks” provided in this manner are not visually represented in conjunction with the “documents” that they mark.
Additionally, word processing software is known to provide marking ability. For example, “WORDPERFECT” word processor software allows a user to insert a “bookmark” into a document. The user can later select the bookmark from a list of bookmarks and have the display return to the point in the document where the bookmark was inserted. Again, however, this method of bookmarking fails to provide any visual indicator along with the document itself.
Finally, “EXCEL” spreadsheets are known to provide visible “tabs” which uniquely identify various “sheets” within a file. However, the location and appearance of these tabs is not controllable by the user.
Thus, it would be advantageous to provide a technique for creating, using and removing bookmarks and placemarks in electronic documents. Such a technique should provide a visual indicator where appropriate and should provide flexibility in defining parameters that control the marks.